I. The Bible divides all the human race into two classes only;
the righteous and the wicked. Those are righteous who have true
faith in Christ, whose spirit is consecrated to God, who live a
heavenly life on earth, and who have been renewed by the Holy
Ghost. Their original selfishness is subdued and slain, and they
live a new life through the ever present grace of Christ
Jesus.

Right over against them in character are the wicked, who have
not been renewed in heart--who live in selfishness, under the
dominion of appetite in some of its forms, and it matters not in
which out of all possible forms, it may be; but self is the great
and only ultimate end of their life; these are in the scriptural
sense, the wicked.

II. God is angry with the wicked. Our text explicitly affirms
this. The same truth is affirmed and implied in numerous other
passages. Let the sinner remember that this is the testimony of
God himself. Who should better know the feelings of God towards
sinners than God Himself does? Who on this point can gainsay what
God affirms?

But this truth is also taught by reason. Every man in the
exercise of his reason knows it ought to be true. If God were not
opposed to the wicked, He would be wicked Himself for not opposing
them. What would you think of a judge who did not hate and oppose
law-breakers? Would you think him an honest man if he did not take
sides against transgressors? Every body knows that this is the
dictate of reason and of common sense. Sinners know this, and
always assume it in their practical judgments. They know that God
is angry with them, and ought to be--though they may not realize
it. Sinners know many things which they do not realize. For
instance, you who are in sin know that you must die; but you have
more reason to be assured that God is angry with you than you have
to be sure that you must die; for it is not necessarily so certain
that you will die as it is that God is angry with you for your
sin. God may possibly translate you from this world to another
without your death--as he has some others; but there never was and
never can be any exception to the universal law of his anger
against all the wicked. You know this therefore with an absolute
certainty which precludes all possibility of rations doubt.

Sinners do know this, and I have said, and always assume it in
their practical judgments. Else why are they afraid to die--why
afraid to meet God face to face in the world of retribution? Would
they have this fear if they did not know that God is angry with
them for their sin? It would be gratuitous therefore to prove this
truth to the sinner; he already knows it--knows it not only as a
thing that is, but as what ought to be.

III. The nature of this anger demands our attention. On this
point it is important to notice negatively,

1. It is not a malicious anger. God is never malicious; never
has a disposition to do any wrong in any way--to any being. He is
infinitely far from such feelings, and from any such developments
of anger.

2. His anger is not passion in the sense in which men are wont
to exhibit passion in anger. You may often have seen men whose
sensibility is lashed into fury under an excitement of anger;
their very souls seem to be boiling with fermentation, so intense
is their excitement. Reason for the time is displaced, and passion
reigns. Now God is never angry in such a way. His anger against
the wicked involves no such excitement of passion.

3. God's anger can not be in any sense a selfish anger; for God
is not selfish in the least degree, but infinitely the reverse of
it. Of course his anger against the wicked must be entirely devoid
of selfishness.

But postively his anger against the wicked implies,

1. An entire disapprobation of their conduct and character. He
disapproves most intensely and utterly every thing in either their
heart or their life. He loathes the wicked with infinite
loathing.

2. He feels the strongest opposition of will to their
character. It is so utterly opposed to his own character and to
his own views of right that his will arrays itself in the
strongest form of opposition against it.

3. God's anger involves also strong opposition of feeling
against sinners. Undoubtedly God must have feelings of anger
against the wicked. We can not suppose it possible that God should
behold sin without feelings of anger.

In our attempts to conceive of the mental faculties of the
divine mind, we are under a sort of necessity of reasoning
analogically from our own minds. Revelation has told us that we
are "made in the image of God." Of course the mind of God is the
antetype from which ours was cast. The great constituent elements
of mind we must suppose are therefore alike in both the infinite
and the finite. As we have intellect, sensibility, and will, so
has God.

From our own minds moreover we infer not only what the
faculties of the divine mind are, but also the laws under which
they act. We know that in the presence of certain objects we
naturally feel strong opposition. Those objects are so related to
our sensibility that anger and indignation are the natural result.
We could not act according to the fixed laws of our own minds if
we did not utterly disapprove wrong-doing, and if our disapproval
of it moreover did not awaken some real sensibility in the form of
displeasure and indignation against the wrong-doer.

Some suppose that these results of the excited sensibility
against wrong would not develop themselves if our hearts were
right. This is a great mistake. The nearer right our hearts are,
the more certainly shall we disapprove wrong, the more intensely
shall we feel opposed to it, and the greater will be our
displeasure against the wrong-doer. Hence we must not only suppose
that God is angry in the sense of a will opposed to sin, but in
the further sense of a sensibility enkindled against it. This must
be the case if God is truly a moral agent.

4. God is not angry merely against the sin abstracted from the
sinner, but against the sinner himself. Some persons have labored
hard to set up this ridiculous and absurd abstraction, and would
fain make it appear that God is angry at the sin yet not at the
sinner. He hates the theft, but loves the thief. He abhors
adultery, but is pleased with the adulterer. Now this is supreme
nonsense. The sin has no moral character apart from the sinner.
The act is nothing apart from the actor. The very thing that God
hates and disapproves is not the mere event--the thing done in
distinction from the doer; but it is the doer himself. It grieves
and displeases him that a rational moral agent, under his
government, should array himself against his own God and Father,
against all that is right and just in the universe. This is the
thing that offends God. The sinner himself is the direct and the
only object of his anger.

So the Bible shows. God is angry with the wicked--not with the
abstract sin. If the wicked turn not, God will whet his sword;--he
hath bent his bow and made it ready;--not to shoot the sin
however, but the sinner--the wicked man who has done the
abominable thing. This is the only doctrine of either the Bible or
of common sense on this subject.

5. The anger of God against the wicked implies all that
properly belongs to anger when it exists with good reason. We know
by our own experience that when we are angry with good reason, we
have strong opposition of will and also strong feelings of
displeasure and disapprobation against the wrong-doers. Hence we
may infer that the same is true of God under the same
circumstances.

IV. The REASONS of God's anger against the wicked next demand
our attention. His anger is never excited without good reasons.
Causeless anger is always sinful. "Whoever is angry with his
brother without a cause is in danger of the judgment." God never
Himself violates his own laws--founded as they are in infinite
right and justice. Hence God's anger always has good reasons.

Good reasons exist for his anger, and he is angry for those
reasons. It is not uncommon for persons to be angry, under
circumstances too, which are good reasons for anger, but still
they are not angry for those good reasons, but for other reasons
which are not good. For example, every sinner has good reasons for
being angry with every other sinner for his wickedness against
God. But sinners are not angry against other sinners for those
reasons. Although these reasons actually exist, yet when angry at
sinners, it is not for these good reasons, but for some selfish
reasons which are not good. This is a common case. You see persons
angry, and if you reprove them for their anger as sinful, they
seek to justify themselves by affirming that they are angry with
the man for his sins--for his wrong-doing against God. Now this is
indeed a good and sufficient reason for anger, and the
justification would be a good one if the anger were really excited
by this cause. But often, although this reason exists, and is
pleaded by the man as his excuse for anger, yet it is no excuse,
for in fact he is not angry for this cause, but has some selfish
reason for his anger. Not so with God. God is angry with the
wicked not irrespective of his sins, but for his sins.

1. Wicked men are entirely unreasonable. Their conduct is at
war with all reason and with all right. God has given them
intelligence and conscience; but they act in opposition to both.
God has given them a pure and good law, yet this they recklessly
violate. Hence their conduct is in every point of view utterly
unreasonable.

Now we all know that by a fixed law of our being nothing can be
a greater temptation to anger than to see persons act
unreasonably. This is one of the greatest trials that can occur,
and one of the strongest incentives to anger. So when God looks at
the unreasonable conduct of sinners he feels the strongest
indignation and displeasure. If they were not rational beings
endowed with reason, no anger would be awakened and called forth;
but since God knows them to be endowed with reason and to be
capable of true and noble-hearted obedience, he cannot fail of
being displeased with their transgression.

2. The course of the wicked is utterly ruinous. No thanks to
the sinner if his influence does not ruin the whole world. By the
very laws of mind, the sin of any one man tends to influence other
men to sin, and they spread far and wide the dreadful contagion of
his example. It may truly be said that the sinner does the worst
thing possible to him to ruin the universe. He sets the example of
rebellion against the supreme government of all worlds. And what
influence can be more potent than that of example? What worse
thing therefore can the sinner do to destroy all good than he is
doing by his sin? No thanks to him if every man who sees his sin
does not imitate it to his own ruin, and throw the power of his
own example broad-cast over all his associates. No thanks to any
sinner if his own influence for ruin does not run like fire on the
prairies over all the world, and then over every other world of
moral beings in the universe of God.

Think of the father of a family, living in his sins and
exerting his great influence over his household to make them all
as wicked as himself. Who can estimate the power of his influence
over his wife and his children? Does he pray with them and seek to
lead them to God? No; his example is prayerless. It proclaims
every day to his family--"You have no occasion at all to pray. You
see I can live without prayer." Does he read the Bible to them or
with them? No; his constant example before them sets the Bible at
naught, and continually suggests that they will be as well off
without reading the Bible as with. His whole influence therefore
is ruinous to the souls of his family. No thanks to him if they do
not all go down to hell along with himself. If they do not scream
around him with yells of mingled imprecation and despair, cursing
him as the guilty author of their ruin, he will have other
agencies to thank besides his own. Surely he has done what he well
could do to secure results so dreadful as these. Has not God good
reasons to be angry with him? Why not? Would not you feel that you
have good reasons to be angry with a man who should come into your
family to destroy its peace--to seduce your wife and daughters,
and to entice your sons into some pathway of crime and ruin?
Certainly you would. Now do not all families belong to God in a
far higher sense than any man's family belong to him? Why then has
not God as good reasons for anger against a wicked father as you
could have against a villain who should plot and seek to effect
the mischief and ruin of your family? Is it wonderful to you that
God should be angry with every wicked father? Just consider what
that father is doing by his bare example--even supposing that his
words are well-guarded and not particularly liable to objection.
Who does not know that example is the very highest and strongest
moral power? It does not need the help of teaching to make its
power felt for terrible mischief. The prayerless husband and
father! The devil could not do worse--nay, more, not so bad, for
the devil never had mercy offered him--never stood related as this
wicked father does, to offered pardon and to the glorious gospel.
If then God would have good reason to be angry at the devil, much
more has he for anger against this wicked father.

The same substantially is true of other classes of sinners. It
is essential to their very course as sinners, that they are in
rebellion against God, and are doing the very worst thing in the
universe by drawing other moral beings into sin.

Again, God is so good and sinners are so wicked, He can not
help being angry at them. If He were not angry at the wicked, He
would be as much worse than they as He is wiser than they. Since
in his wisdom and knowledge He knows more fully than they do, the
great evil of sin; by so much the more is He under obligation to
be displeased with sin and angry at the sinner. We sometimes hear
men say, "God is too good to be angry at sinners." What do men
mean by this language? Do they mean that God is too good to be
opposed to all evil--too good to be displeased with all
evil-doers? This were indeed a strange goodness! God too good to
hate sin--too good to oppose sinners! What sort of goodness can
this be?

I have sometimes heard men say that if God should be angry with
sinners, He would be as bad as the devil himself. Now this is not
only horrible language on the score of its blasphemy; but it is
monstrous absurdity on the score of its logic. The amount of its
logic is that God would be Himself wicked if He should be
displeased at wickedness. So wrong it must be to hate the
wrong-doer!! Pray who is it that holds such doctrine? Is it not
possible that they feel some interest in sustaining wrong-doers
even against God Himself.

Really there is no force, no plausibility even, in this
language about the wrong of God's being angry at sinners, except
what arises from misconceiving and misrepresenting the true idea
of the divine anger in this case. If God's anger were in itself
sinful--as is the case often with man's anger--then of course,
nothing more can be said in its vindication. But since his anger
is never sinful, never selfish, never malicious, never unholy or
wrong in any degree whatever, nothing can be more false, nothing
more sophistical, nothing more ungenerous and vile and Satanic
than to imply that it is. But this is just what men do when they
say that for God to be angry at sinners is to be Himself
wicked.

The true view of this case is not by any means abstruse or
difficult of apprehension. Who does not know that good men are by
virtue of their goodness opposed to wicked men? Surely all wicked
men know this well enough. Else why the fear they have of good and
law-abiding men? Why do all horse-thieves and counterfeiters keep
dark from good men--dread their presence--commonly feel a strong
dislike to them and always dread their influence as hostile to
their own wicked schemes?

So wicked men feel towards God. They know that his goodness
places Him in hostile array against themselves. This fact seems to
be implied in the Psalmist's expostulation--"Why boastest thou
thyself in mischief, O mighty man? The goodness of God endureth
continually." God is always good; how can you be proud of your
wickedness? God is too good and too constantly good to afford you
any scope for sin--any ground of hope for peace with him in your
iniquity.

V. The degree of God's anger against sin should be next
considered. It is plain that the degree of God's anger against the
wicked ought to be equal to the degree of their wickedness, and
must be if God is what He should be. The times of heathen
ignorance and darkness "God winked at"--the degree of their guilt
being less by as much as their light is less than that of such
cities as Chorazin and Bethsaida. God does not hold them innocent
absolutely, but relatively they might almost be called innocent,
compared with the great guilt of sinners in gospel lands. Against
those who sin amid the clearest light, his anger must burn most
intensely; for example, against sinners in this place and
congregation. You may be outwardly a decent and moral man,
respected and beloved by your friends; but if you are a selfish,
impenitent sinner the pure and holy God loathes and abhors you. He
sees more real guilt in you than in ten thousand of those
dark-minded heathen who are bowing down to idol gods, and whose
crimes you read of with loathing and disgust. Think of it. God may
be more angry against you for your great wickedness than against a
nation of idolaters whose ignorance He winks at, while He measures
your light and consequent guilt in the balances of his own eternal
justice. O are you living here amid the blazing sun-light of
truth--knowing your duty every day and every day refusing to do
it;--do you not know that in the eye of God you are one of the
wickedest beings out of hell, or in hell either, and that God's
hatred against your sin is equal to your great guilt? But you say
perhaps, Am I not moral and honest? Suppose you are moral. For
whose sake are you moral, and for what reason? Is it not for your
reputation's sake only? The devil might be as moral for such a
purpose as you are. Mark, it is not for God's sake,--not for
Christ's sake, that you are a moral man, but because you love
yourself. You might be just as moral if there were no God, or if
you were an atheist. Of course if so, you are saying in your heart
let there be no fear of God before my eyes--no love of God in my
heart. Let me live and have my own way as if there were no God.
And all this you do not under the darkness of heathenism, but amid
the broadest sun-light of heaven's truth blazing all around you.
Do you still ask, What have I done? You have arrayed yourself
against God, rejected the gospel of his Son, and done despite to
the Spirit of his grace. What heathen has ever done this, or
anything that could compare with this in guilt? The vilest heathen
people that ever wallowed in the filth of their own abominations
are pure compared with you. Do you start back and rebel against
this view of your case? Then let us ask again, By what rule are we
to estimate guilt? You pass along the street and you see the lower
animals doing what you would be horrified to see human beings do,
but you never think of them as guilty. You see those dogs try to
tear each other to pieces; you will try perhaps to part them, but
you will not think of feeling moral indignation or moral
displeasure against them; and why? Because you instinctively judge
of their guilt by their light, and by their capacity of governing
themselves by light and reason. On nearly the same principle you
might see the heathen reeking in their abominations, quarreling,
and practicing the most loathsome forms of vice and
selfishness--but their guilt is only a glimmering taper compared
with yours, and therefore you can not but estimate their guilt as
by so much less than your own as their light is less! Your reason
demands that you should estimate guilt on this principle, and you
know that you can not rightly estimate it on any other. For the
very same reason you must conclude that God estimates guilt on the
same principles, and that his anger against sin is in proportion
to the sinners' guilt, estimated in view of the light he enjoys
and sins against. The degree of God's anger against the wicked is
not measured by their outward conduct, but by their real guilt as
seen by him whose eye is on the heart.

VI. As to the duration of God's anger against the wicked, it
manifestly must continue as long as the wickedness itself
continues. As long as wicked men continue wicked, so long must God
be angry at them every day. If they turn not, there can be no
abatement, no cessation of his anger. This is so plain that
everybody must know it.

VII. The terrible condition of the sinner against whom God is
angry.

This dreadful truth that God is angry with the wicked every
day, sinners know, but do not realize. Yet it were well for you
who are sinners to apprehend and estimate this just as it is.

Look then at the attributes of God. Who and what is God? Is He
not a Being whose wrath against you is to be dreaded? You often
feel that it is a terrible thing to incur the displeasure of some
men. Children are often exceedingly afraid of the anger of their
parents. Any child has reason to feel that it is a terrible state
of things, when he has done wrong and knows it must come to the
knowledge of his father and his mother, and must arouse their
keenest displeasure against himself--this is terrible, and no
wonder a child should dread it. How much more has the sinner
reason to fear and tremble when by his sin he has made the
Almighty God his enemy! Think of his state;--think of the case of
the sinner's exposing himself to the indignation of the great and
dreadful God! Look at God's natural attributes. Who can measure
the extent of his power? Who or what can resist his will? He
taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the nations before
Him are only as the small dust of the balance. When his wrath is
kindled, who can stand before it, or stay its dreadful fury?

Think also of his Omniscience. He knows all you have done.
Every act has passed underneath his eye;--and not every external
act, merely, but what is far more dreadful to you, every motive
lying back of every act--all the most hidden workings of your
heart. O, if you were only dealing with some one whom you could
deceive, how would you set yourself at work to plan some deep
scheme of deception; but all in vain here, for God knows it all.
If it were a case between yourself and some human tribunal you
might cover up many things; you might perjure yourself, or might
smuggle away the dreaded witnesses; but before God, no such
measures can avail you for one moment. The whole truth will come
out, dread its disclosure as much as you may. The darkness and the
light are both alike to Him, and nothing can be hidden from his
eye.

Again, not only does God know everything you have done, and not
only is he abundantly able to punish you, but He is as much
disposed as He is able, or omniscient. You will find He has no
disposition to overlook your guilt. He is so good that He never
can let sin unrepented of pass unnoticed and unpunished. It would
be an infinite wrong to the universe if He should! If He were to
do it, He would at once cease to be a good and holy God!

O, sinner, do you ever think of God's perfect holiness--the
infinite purity of his heart! Do you ever think how intensely
strong must be his opposition to your sin--to those sins of yours
which are so bad even in your own view that you cannot bear to
have many of your fellow men know them? How do you suppose your
guilty soul appears in the eye of the pure and holy God?

You often hear of God's mercy. You hope for some good to
yourself, perhaps, from this attribute of his nature. Ah, if you
had not spurned it, and trampled it under your feet! If you had
not slighted and abused its manifestations to you, it might
befriend you in your day of need;--but ah, how can you meet
insulted mercy! What can you say for yourself in defense for
having sinned against the richest mercy the world ever saw? Can
you hope that God's injured mercy will befriend you? Nay, verily;
God has not one attribute which is not armed against you. Such is
his nature, and such is his character that you have nothing to
hope, but every thing to fear. His dreadful anger against you must
be expressed. He may withhold its expression for a season to give
the utmost scope for efforts to reclaim and save you; but when
these efforts shall have failed, then will not justice take her
course? Will not insulted Majesty utter her awful voice? Will not
the infinite God arise in his awful purity, and proclaim--"I hate
all wickedness, my anger burns against the sinner to the lowest
hell?" Will not Jehovah take measures to make his true position
towards sinners known?

REMARKS.

1. God is much more opposed to sinners than Satan is. Doubtless
this must be so, for Satan has no special reason for being opposed
to sinners. They are doing his work very much as he would have
them. We have no evidence that Satan is displeased with their
course. But God is displeased with them, and for the best of
reasons.

Men sometimes say--"If God is angry with the wicked He is worse
than Satan." They seem to think that Satan is a liberal,
generous-hearted being. They are rather disposed to commend him as
on the whole very charitable and noble-hearted. They may think
that Satan is bad enough, but they can not be reconciled to it
that God should be so hard on sinners.

Now the facts are that God is too good to be otherwise than
angry with sinners. The devil is so bad himself that he finds no
difficulty in being well enough pleased with their vileness. It
does not offend him. Hence from his very nature God must hate the
sinner infinitely more than Satan does.

2. If God were not angry with sinners, he would not be worthy
of confidence. What would you think of a civil governor who should
manifest no indignation against transgressors of the law? You
would say of course that he had not the good of the community at
heart, and you could have no confidence in him.

3. God's anger with sinners is not inconsistent with his
happiness. Why should it be, if it is not inconsistent with his
holiness? If there were anything wrong about it, then it would
indeed destroy all his happiness; but if it be intrinsically
right, then it not only can not destroy his happiness, but he
could not be happy without anger against the wicked. His happiness
must be conditioned upon his acting and feeling in accordance with
the reality of things. Hence, if God did not hate sin and did not
manifest his hatred in all proper ways, He could not respect
Himself. He could not retire within the great deep of his own
nature, and enjoy eternal bliss in the consciousness of infinite
rectitude.

4. God's opposition to sinners is his glory. It is all-glorious
to God to manifest his anger towards wicked men and devils. Is not
this the fact with all good rulers? Do they not seize every
opportunity to manifest their opposition to the wicked, and is not
this their real glory? Do we not account it their glory to be
zealous and efficient in detecting crime? Most certainly. They can
have no other real glory. But suppose a ruler should sympathize
with murderers, thieves, robbers. We should execrate his very
name!

5. Saints love God for his opposition to sinners, not excepting
even his opposition to their own sins. They could not have
confidence in Him if He did not oppose their own sins, and it is
not in their hearts to ask Him to favor even their own iniquities.
No, where they come near Him, and see how He is opposed to their
own sins, and to them on account of them, they honor Him and adore
Him the more. They do not want any being in the universe to
connive at their own sins, or to take any other stand towards
themselves as sinners, than that of opposition.

6. This text is to be understood as it reads. Its language is
to be taken in its obvious sense. Some have supposed that God is
not really angry with sinners, but uses this language in
accommodation to our understandings.

This is an unwarrantable latitude of interpretation. Suppose we
should apply the same principle to what is said of God's love.
When we read, "God so loved the world as to give his only begotten
Son," suppose we say, this cannot mean real love, such as we feel
for each other--no, nothing like this; the language is only used
by way of accommodation, and really has no particular sense
whatever. This sort of interpretation would destroy the Bible, or
any other book ever written. The only sound view of this matter is
that God speaks as sensible men do--to be understood by the reader
and hearer, and of course uses language in its most obvious sense.
If he says He is angry against the wicked, we must suppose that he
really is.

It is indeed true that we are to qualify the language as I have
already shown by what we absolutely know of his real character,
and therefore hence infer that this language cannot imply
malicious anger, or selfish anger, or any forms of anger
inconsistent with infinite benevolence. But having made the
necessary qualifications, there are no more to be made, and the
cardinal idea of anger still remains--a fixed eternal displeasure
and opposition against all sinners because of their great
guilt.

7. God's anger against the sinner does not exclude love--real,
compassionate love. Not however the love of complacency, but the
love of well-wishing and good-willing; not the love of him as a
sinner, but the love for him as a sentient being who might be
infinitely happy in obedience to his God. This is undoubtedly the
true view to be taken of God's attitude towards sinners. What
parent does not know what this is? You have felt the kindlings of
indignation against the wickedness of your child, but blended with
this you have also felt all the compassionate tenderness of a
parent's heart.

The sinner sometimes says--It can not be that God is angry with
me, for He watches over me day by day; He feeds me from his table,
and regales me with his bounties. Ah sinner, you may be greatly
mistaken in this matter. Don't deceive yourself. God is slow to
anger indeed: that is, He is slow to give expression to his anger,
and Himself assigns the reason,--because He is long-suffering
towards sinners, "not willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance." But take care that you do not
misconceive his real feelings towards you. Beware lest you
misinterpret his great forbearance. He waits, I know; but the
storm of vengeance is gathering. How soon He may come forth out of
his place and unlock suddenly all the whirlwinds of his vengeance!
Ah sinner, this once done, they will sleep no more!

8. It is plain that sinners do not realize God's anger, though
they know it. If they do both know and realize it, they manifest a
degree of hardihood in iniquity which is dreadful. But the fact
is, they keep the thought of God's anger from their minds. They
are reckless about it, and treat it as they do death. Sinners know
they must die, but they do not realize this fact. They do not love
to sit down and commune with death--thinking how soon it may come,
how certainly it will come--how the grave-worms will gnaw the
flesh from their cheek-bones, and consume those eyes now bright
and sparkling. These young ladies don't love to commune with such
thoughts as these, and realize how soon these scenes will be
realities.

So you don't love to think of God's anger against sin; of his
reasons for his anger, and of his great provocations. You probably
don't' like to hear me preach about it, and yet I preach as mildly
as I can. You can't bear to hear the subject brought forward and
pressed upon your attention. Tell me, are you in the habit of
sitting down and considering this subject attentively? If you were
to do so, you could not contemn God and treat Him as if you had no
care for Him.

9. Are you aware sinner, that you have made God your enemy, and
have you thought how terrible a thing this is? Do you consider how
impotent you are to withstand God? If you were in any measure
dependent on any one of your fellow men you would not like to make
him your enemy. The student in this college is careful not to make
the faculty, or any one of them his enemy. The child has the same
solicitude in regard to his parent. Now consider what you are
doing towards God--that God who holds your breath in his
hands--your very life in his power. Let him only withdraw his hand
and you sink to hell by your own gravity. On a slippery steep you
stand, and the billows of damnation roll below! O sinner, are you
aware that when you lie down at night with your weapons of
rebellion against God in your very hands, his blazing eye is on
you--are you well aware of this?

You may recollect the case of a Mr. H. once a student here. For
a considerable time he had been rebellious against the truth of
God as presented here to his mind, and this spirit of rebellion
rose gradually to a higher and yet higher pitch. It seemed to have
made about as much head as he could well bear, and in this state
he retired to bed, and extinguished his light. All at once his
room seemed full of dazzling splendor--he gazed around--there
stood before him a glorious form--with eyes of unearthy and most
searching power; gradually all else disappeared save one eye which
shone with indescribable brilliancy and seemed to search him
through and through. The impression made on his mind was awful. O,
said he, I could not have lived under it many minutes if I had not
yielded and bowed in submission to the will of God.

Sinner, have you ever considered that God's searching eye is on
you? Do you think of it whenever you lie down at night? If you
should live so long and should lie down again on your bed, think
of it then. Write it down on a little card and hang it where it
will most often catch your eye--"Thou, God, seest me." Do this;
and then realize that God's eye is penetrating your very heart. O
that searching, awful eye! You close your eyes to sleep--still
God's eye is on you. It closes not for the darkness of night. Do
you say, "I shall sleep as usual--I am not the sinner who will be
kept awake through fear of God's wrath--Why should I be afraid of
God? What have I to fear? I know indeed that God says "Give Me
thine heart," but I have no thought of doing it. I have disobeyed
him many years and see no flaming wrath yet. I expect he will feed
me still and fill my cup with every form of blessings."

O sinner, for these very reasons have you the more cause to
dread his burning wrath! You have abused his mercy well nigh to
the last moment of endurance. O how soon will his wrath break
forth against thee, and no arm in all the universe can stay its
whelming floods of ruin! And if you don't believe it, its coming
will be all the more sure, speedy and awful!

This
file is CERTIFIED BY GOSPEL TRUTH MINISTRIES TO BE
CONFORMED TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT. For authenticity
verification, its contents can be compared to the
original file at www.GospelTruth.net
or by contacting Gospel Truth P.O. Box 6322, Orange, CA
92863. (C)2000. This file is not to be changed in any
way, nor to be sold, nor this seal to be
removed.